At least two dead in Mexico in first hurricane of the season

At least two people have died as Hurricane Agatha cuts a swath across Mexico.

The first hurricane of the season, the unusually strong storm made landfall on Monday near several beach resorts on Mexico's Pacific coast.

According to the authorities, it caused flooding and landslides. The two dead were a woman and a man buried in a landslide in the town of Santa Catarina Xanaguía, the civil defence agency in the affected state of Oaxaca said on Tuesday.

With winds of up to 165 kilometres per hour, Agatha was a category 2 hurricane, out of a five-point scale and, according to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC), the strongest storm to make landfall on Mexico's Pacific coast in the month of May since records began in 1949. Agatha has lost strength as it moved inland.

On Tuesday, the storm was downgraded to a tropical depression and dissipated. Nevertheless, heavy rain continued to fall in south-eastern Mexico.

The number of victims could still rise, the civil defence authorities said. People were still missing in areas cut off from the outside world or difficult to reach.

According to the state-owned electricity company CFE, 70,000 connections were temporarily cut off.

Hurricane season lasts from May 15 to November 30 in the Pacific and from June 1 to November 30 in the Atlantic.

According to experts, climate change is probably causing tropical cyclones to become more intense.